Two Rice Balls, A Kitten, and A Haircut
by AmberPalette
Summary: Tohru Honda spends an afternoon with Akito Sohma in an attempt to arrive at detente with the embittered family head. Hypothetical alternate sitch inspired by their new friendship in the manga but based on the anime.


**Two Rice Cakes, a Kitten, and a Haircut:**

**A Short "Fruits Basket" Fanfiction**

**By Amber Stitt ("AmberPalette")**

**DISCLAIMER: WARNING, MANGA SPOILERS IN THE DISCLAIMER! "Fruits Basket/Furuba" in its anime and manga formats are the creation and property of Takaya Natsuki and I in NO WAY claim ownership or profit thereof.**

**RATED PG FOR SWEARING AND MATURE THEMES (DEATH, CHILDHOOD TRAUMA). **

**This is a very brief psychological study of the two opposite personalities of Tohru Honda and Akito Sohma. It is an attempt to pose a hypothetical (in other words, alternate/pre-manga events) point at which the heroine is able to offer comfort to a bitter, vindictive, terminally ill person without detriment to herself. It is praise for Tohru's compassion but also a warning to all the real-life Tohrus reading this fanfiction to not become so self-sacrificial as to become self-damaging. I would not categorize this as fluff, but neither is it excessively gritty. I believe that we get enough of that crap in daily life and I would prefer that my writing be uplifting rather than discouraging. **

**If you do not believe that positive regard would ever occur between Tohru and Akito, you have only to acknowledge that THE MANGA ITSELF proposes peace and new friendship between them, in chapters 120-131 (released in Japan only as of July 2006). Don't flame me for sticking to CANON.**

**This story is recommended for readers who are well versed in the anime, but NOT in the manga—essentially, newcomers. I'm not saying readers of the manga should disregard my story (in fact I DO hint at things to come in the manga here and there): I just ask you to tolerate my intermediate level of knowledge when I wrote this. In this fanfiction, Akito's gender is MALE because Tohru HAS NOT YET DISCOVERED AKITO'S TRUE GENDER. BECAUSE THE POV OF THIS STORY IS 3RD PERSON TOHRU, AKITO'S GENDER AS MALE IS MOST APPROPRIATE. I PERSONALLY PREFER TO DEPICT AKITO AS FEMALE, BUT IN THIS CASE, I AM SIMPLY ATTEMPTING CANONICAL ACCURACY RE. THE NARRATOR'S POV. **

**THIS ALSO OCCURS BEFORE AKITO IS RELEASED FROM HER MAGNIFIED/CORE CURSE IN CHAPTER 131 OF THE MANGA—THEREFORE THE CHARACTERS ARE STILL UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT SHE WILL DIE. **

**What attracts me to this anime—by extension my writing's main objective—is the exceptionally well crafted dynamic of its characters, and the plausibility of their childhood development and psychology as related to their current behaviors and personalities. Enjoy!**

"The lights go out all around me

One last candle to keep out the night

And then the darkness surrounds me

I know I'm alive

But I feel like I've died

And all that's left is to accept that it's over

My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made

I try to keep warm but I just grow colder

I feel like I'm slipping away

After all this has passed

I still will remain

After I've cried my last

There'll be beauty from pain

Though it won't be today

Someday I'll hope again

And there'll be beauty from pain

My whole world is the pain inside me

The best I can do is just get through the day

When life before is only a memory

I wonder why God let me walk through this place

And though I can't understand why this happened

I know that I will when I look back someday

And see how you've brought beauty from ashes

And made me as gold purified through these flames

Here and I am at the end of me

Trying to hold to what I can't see

I forgot how to hope

This night's been so long

I cling to your promise there will be a dawn"

--Superchic(k)

"It must have been very painful, Akito. Being told the day you were born that you were going to die. It must have been so painful….You're right, I can't even imagine how awful it would be to know something like that, how terrifying. Shigure, Yuki, Kyo…I'm sure they feel that way too, and Hatori too. And when you pass away we'll be sad. We'll be very sad to lose you. … Akito, right now you're alive, aren't you? …I…I didn't know my mom was going to die….I wanted her to live a long time. I wanted her to be here to watch me….and I don't know what your family's curse is, but I'm happy…I'm happy that I know you, Akito, and I don't regret meeting you, or anyone, not at all. I want to know you. Please tell me how you feel, even if you're angry or bitter or frustrated, that's okay because the important thing is, right now, Akito, you're alive."—Tohru Honda's words to Akito Sohma, final episode, the Fruits Basket anime, English translation.

"_Alive? You call this alive? It's been decided—It's been decided! And they never even asked me!…Stop talking!… Stop crying. Stop it, stop crying … _in response to "Please tell me how you feel": …_I don't know." –Akito Sohma's confession in response to the compassion of Tohru Honda, final episode, the _Fruits Basket _anime, English translation. _

**THREE MONTHS AFTER THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE "Fruits Basket" ANIME **

Faint, golden-haired Kisa whimpered. "Prince" Yuki silently clutched the collar of his school uniform as the marble skin of his stoically pleasant face paled the color of fishbelly. Coal-haired, gregarious Shigure spat out a marvelous geyser of Chai tea, decorating the white tablecloth with yellowish-amber rain. His teasing, dancing eyes now gaped.

Flame-haired and inferno-tempered Kyo, the unfortunate Sohma sitting nearest the zodiac dog that morning, wiped the regurgitated tea off his cheek, exploded to his feet, and bellowed, "Tohru, that's INSANE! I won't LET you! And who the hell CARES if you have a '_present'_ for him?" His warm-skinned, lean hands clenched spasmodically at his sides. "What does THAT dictator- brat give a damn!"

"Kyo's right, sissy," a frail and sweet voice, that of the child-tiger, floated above the zodiac cat's…dulcet…snarls. She wove a strand of ore-hued hair around her finger. "He can be mean. Really mean, and you never expect it. He could hurt you. He could push you, and pull your hair again, and make Hatori erase your memory."

"Hatori won't agree to that, Kisa." The short, slender brunette upon whom all this unwanted shock was lavished, the gentle intercessor into the lives of the Sohma clan—Tohru Honda—finally spoke her defense. "I think my memory's safe for a little while. And anyway, he and Shigure said that I made big strides with Akito the last time I went to see him."

"BULLshit," someone spat, a bit desperately—then murmured something about this claim being as disgusting as eating leeks.

Tohru continued as though no outburst had impeded her defense, "I actually calmed him down—I guess not many people can do that. Maybe he resents me now, but I'm…well, I'm determined to use mom's lesson about seeking the positive qualities in every person, even on Akito. I want him to realize what he can look forward to simply because he's alive." She studied her itchy white cotton stockings with some trepidation, one foot rubbing the back of her calf. "Well, that is to say….I mean at least he doesn't want me dead or leaving you anymore. That's a start, right?"

"That's hardly a pretext for bopping over there for a chatty afternoon social!" Kyo growled, struggling to conceal his affection and concern for Tohru with cantankerousness.

As usual, he failed at this endeavor.

Tohru looked up and shyly beamed at him, sealing it with an indulgent giggle. "I'll be fine, Kyo."

Kyo blushed, accidentally and awkwardly smiled back, and sat down. In a muttering stream, the words "sadistic bastard," "worry about you" and "wanna come along" were detectible.

Yuki, who had been arranging his breakfast cakes in an impeccably neat row and cutting them into crisp squares, now placed his knife on the edge of his plate. He concealed a disgusted noise with a cough caused by another of his bronchial infections. He ignored the electric feline glare that the redhead shot his way even as he interjected, "You are always sure of your 'being fine,' though, Tohru, and not always correct." He sighed, fair eyebrows knitting. "And in his rapidly deteriorating state, Akito is nothing if not spiteful and capricious. Please reconsider…you sometimes do not know the limits of your own strength and kindness." The rat's lavender eyes glistened with a worry to match Kyo's. "And then…then you just collapse."

The cat nodded grudging agreement. "Yeah." If there was one point and one point alone upon which feline and rodent agreed, it was Tohru's well-being and the fact that said well-being was a priority.

"Loooook who's talkiiiing," Shigure melodically rebutted, with an absurdly cheerful grin around a mouthful of rice cakes.

"That is beside the point," Yuki silkily hissed, cheeks flushing a delicate pink.

Kyo snickered, then pretended to sneeze when he too received a glare.

"Is it?" Shigure swallowed. "Ah, so tasty! In any case, Tohru, your courage is admirable and I will concede to your request: Today you will visit Akito, while his humor towards you is relatively favorable. Per his own request, Kyo will accompany you. Make sure that Hatori shows you both in."

"Bah," Kyo grunted. "Fine."

"Did you actually just say 'bah'?" Yuki snorted.

"Shut up. Damned, damned rat. I don't see you mustering the courage to go greet Little Mister Sociopath with us today."

Yuki's voice was so placating, even when he was furious. "You _want _in that house, you _want_ that status and that family, Kyo. You were pushed away to safe waters, not….clung to…by that…that…manipulative little leech. You haven't fought your way _away_ from Akito since you were a toddler. You _don't_ understand."

"Safe waters! SAFE…WATERS!"

"Hey, now," Shigure interceded. The song in his tone had gone slightly sour with warning. "Head of house. He's your _head of house_. Remember that. A little respect?"

"I don't care if he's my WIFE, he's a freakin' _sociopath!" _Kyo punched the tabletop.At least the dog's interruption had drawn the cat's hostility away from his familial arch-rival. "No, a _psychopath!_ An axe murderer!" He leapt to his feet, brandishing a chopstick and shaking the fist in which it was clenched. As a result, half the tableware was upset, including the rest of Shigure's tea.

Kyo flushed—again. "Um…Sorry."

Yuki tossed his silver bangs. "You're a moron. Akito doesn't own an axe. He owns a very small, lockable closet, and a dark little room in the side wing. And a switch. A …well-used one."

Now the cat was truly silenced. He sat back down, frowning.

Tohru rubbed her temples, standing and collecting their plates. Yes, Akito Sohma owned those things, and, many years ago, while himself a child, had turned these, and his own implacable and bottomless rage, on his even younger relative Yuki.

Mom. Mom, help me, please.

"One thing, my dear," Shigure snagged her on her way to the kitchen with a mere contemplative whisper.

She paused. "Um….yes, Shigure?"

"What is it you really wish to accomplish today?"

She started, eyes studying everything aside his suddenly intense face. She sought the right words. At last she settled for one: "Hope. Not a miracle, not a cure. Just hope." Shigure's lip tugged upward on one side. He leaned back from the table, uncrossing and stretching his legs. "Very well. An admirable cause. Only, be careful, and do not let disappointment crush you. And Tohru—recognize the point at which your limits are reached."

"I understand." But she wasn't really sure that she did.

HELP me, mom!

A bitter winter rain descended when Tohru and Kyo arrived at the chilly, imposing Sohma Main House. The sharp Imperial facade rose vengefully to the sky, piercing the dreary, dirty gray clouds. The faint sound of so many bamboo and glass wind chimes and rusty wind veins tickled their eardrums with giggling menace.

As they neared the front door, another sound imposed upon Tohru, one she had always faintly noticed when near Akito Sohma—a pale sound, a distant, malevolent crooning sound, the sound of a flock of dying doves. The sound of something young and sick, but unyielding.

It was this sound that terrified Tohru of the head of Sohma house, as much as Akito's actual physical presence—that of a short, slender boy barely shed of his own adolescence, who nevertheless had an intimidating power to force and manipulate. The sound was nearly deafening, though no one else ever acknowledged having heard it, when she was facing the boy who bore the full brunt of the Sohma curse so that his relatives might go on living.

He must be close by—he must be lounging at a circular window again, reposed against it, watching her with cool, disgusted disinterest again. Hating her again.

Tohru's wide eyes roved the grounds, leaping from window to window, but Akito was nowhere to be found. Her breath caught in her throat in discouragement and fear, and Kyo, fatigued though he was by the rain, put his hand on her damp jumper-clad shoulder, brow furrowed.

She turned to him, clutching to her courage, smiling reassuringly. She nodded at a satchel bag that he carefully carried. The bag made curious high-pitched noises and squirmed in his grip. "It's okay in there?"

"Never better," he replied sardonically, but his garnet eyes were soft as he regarded her face. "I still say you're really somethin', Tohru. But don't let it swallow you up, okay?" He said this last thing fiercely, protectively.

"I promise," she said, but still she didn't understand his words, or Shigure's from earlier—advice the cruxes of which seemed linked. She knocked on the door.

To her relief, the stoic, silently observant family doctor, Hatori Sohma, answered the door. "Here already? Shigure telephoned only ten minutes ago." He gave a grave sigh, vapor billowing from his lips in a manner that suited his zodiac identity, the dragon. "I warn you, he may be quiet, but that means he's in one of his particularly cross moods—he has a fever and it reminds him of his frailty, and that makes him moody and self-isolated: not that half of his physical state isn't caused by disturbed psychological perceptions…. At any rate. I wouldn't be as afraid of a physical attack as I would of a verbal one…Just be braced." The scent of cigarette smoke was thick on his person and smoke was the color of his tragic eyes. One, shielded by his combed-over walnut hair, was slightly off focus and glazed.

This left eye was partially blind—the handiwork of Akito himself, in one of his ….excited…states. At an age shy of twenty, a waifish weight, and a height that did not even reach five feet, five inches, Akito was as colorless, as much a camouflaged but explosive threat, as a suddenly uncorked vial of nitroglycerine. The power he wielded over his family was stupefying and revolting. Tohru was quite nervous.

Nevertheless she let herself in, shaking raindrops off her long, thick brown plait. "That's alright, Hatori," she said, bowing. "I came expecting this to be a bit difficult."

Kyo scoffed and shed his blue hoodie by the door, handed Hatori the satchel—"Here, Ha'ri, a gift for _mein Fuhrer_"—and wrung Tohru's hair out for her. He cringed at the wetness on his repulsed Zodiac cat hands, but managed bravely.

Tohru giggled at this gesture, and Kyo grinned lopsidedly back, pleased that he had caused her amusement. His cheeks began to warm under the wet flame orange hair that licked his skull.

Again.

Hatori watched wrly, coughed a prompt, then handed the satchel back to Kyo. "Godssakes you two, don't be late to see him because you're flirting in his hallway."

"We're not flirting!" Now Kyo bristled and turned a scarlet to rival his hair.

Again.

"Whatever." Hatori rumbled a laugh from deep in his throat. "Get going. I don't know how long he'll last before he needs rest today."

"Hatori, stop dramatizing my illness," somebody purred from a dark spot down the hallway. "Just because I have a fever does not forebode any particular behavior on my part."

All three of them froze, then turned.

A wasted ghost of a boy with raven hair that was, to the follicle, the same cropped, unevenly-shredded-satin style as Yuki Sohma's, shifted weight in the shadows. In such tricky lighting, he could even be mistaken as a more angular, emaciated Zodiac rat. "I sat outside all afternoon with my white birds after you came by last, Miss Honda. It has been a long time since I did that." Akito Sohma's voice was hypnotizingly soft, like a falling, slurring, lilting feather. It was alluring, pacifying—a shroud over his agonizing scintillations of depression and rage. It was one of his most powerful weapons. Nevertheless, he did seem genuinely pleased to see Tohru.

"That is true," Hatori grunted, then smiled in that carefully controlled, tolerant, soothing way he always smiled around his family master. "And it is very good for your health, Akito. Tohru, you continue to be a positive influence on us all."

Akito made no gesture or remark of either assent or disagreement. He raked a long, neat fingernail slowly across the wooden doorframe to the sitting room—he did not stop until each of his company shuddered in displeasure. Then he laughed, airily, softly, cocking his head to one side in the fashion of a crow with sight of carrion. And then he stepped forward in one liquid gesture—forward into the light.

Akito Sohma was an androgynous, silken creature, so deathly pale that one could see the sky blue veins through his forehead and temples—they peeked through his porcelain flesh whenever he turned his head and his mop of smooth black hair was unsettled. His eyes were too large and bright, an uncompromising teal hue. They narrowed in an appraising, softly paranoid expression that was not reached by his pouting, unenthusiastic smile. He looked like a cross between a delicate child's doll, a crane prone to fits of pecking out its prey's eyes, and a languorous, scrawny black jaguar. Now, as most times, a painfully bright white kimono and a coral robe hung off of his skeletal frame. He tugged up the sides of the kimono, which were slipping off his shoulders and revealing the cruel juts of his shoulder bones.

Because Tohru was very short, Akito enjoyed that he could always look down at her when they spoke. He abused the privilege now, staring deeply into her, slowly scanning her from head to toe. "You are …wet." His lip curled and one of his thin black eyebrows arched. "Come into my sitting room and dry off."

His eyes snapped up and his expression furled slightly that he had to crane his neck to look into Kyo's eye.

The zodiac cat was nearly smothering Tohru from behind, he was so close to her. His crimson eyes threatened painful things. "Yes?" he snapped.

Akito crooned. "Ohhh, Kyo. How comes the training?" He assumed the voice of a tender woman, a maternal voice. "Are you ready to fight Yuki and replace him in the official zodiac? Are you ready to challenge him? Oh but more importantly, are you SAFE, darling? Let me check, now. Yes." And then he had the gall and the spite to reach a feverish, weak hand out to Kyo's jacket sleeve, to pantomime "checking" the black and white charm bracelet on the cat's taut arm—the bracelet that kept him from transforming into the cat's dangerous and resentful monster-spirit.

Just as Kyo's late mother had done years and years ago. She had never thought herself an adequate mother. She had sacrificed herself to this guilt and abandoned her child.

Akito grinned at Tohru and elbowed her lightly. His breathing was unsteady and he was perspiring heavily. "Get it? Who am I? I'm his mommy. Not bad, is it? I could take my act on the road…if I weren't wasting away to, you know, a corpse." His eyes closed and his breathing grew even more sporadic. Mom, he was _smiling_.

Tohru's heart fluttered. She remained mute.

Hatori moved a step closer. "Now, Akito, settle down…"

"You little bastard," Kyo breathed, his pupils contracting to feline slits. "Why d'you always gotta shake _your_ damn salt all over everyone _else's_ cuts?"

"Because MINE never clot and there's no one who'll be my tourniquet, monster," Akito snarled, and suddenly his own eyes were very wide and very unfocused—pale—crazed. "No one even told me YOU were coming. It was supposed to be just HER."

"_That's too goddamned bad for you, isn't it_?" Still Kyo dared not speak above a whisper, but volume was not needed to convey his loathing. His grip on the satchel became so tight that Tohru had to pry his fingers looser, while Akito reacted.

"It is….Speaking of…Where is Yuki?" Akito smiled more calmly; his eyes were again invisible through his silken black-plum bangs, but the smile itself made Tohru glad of the foot or so of distance between them. "I should like to have seen Yuki. Usually he is the one who follows Miss Honda everywhere, is he not? He always avoids me. Why I wonder. Why? I threw away the switch I used on him years ago. No more need of it. His special room is locked off too, now. Why, why."

"He's not with us, Master Akito," Kyo stated simply. He seemed to have recovered from his initial loss of temper, as well.

"But you are." Now the Sohma "Jade Empress" looked sharply up at them both. His cruel daggers of eyes stabbed them both through the soul, emotionally stripped them naked of authority and dignity, in one unhinged stare. "Kyo, all joking aside, you ARE wearing it, right?" He laughed, coldly and incredulously. "Because I don't see it. Shall I check you? Shall I truly play your mother? Sorry to disappoint, but I won't follow it up with sticking my head in a gas stove. I think I do _enough _dying for the lot of you as is."

"Stop it." The zodiac cat angrily averted his eyes. "You know I have it on. You KNOW that. If you weren't so sick on our account, I'd….dammit, you KNOW I have it on."

"DO I?" Akito seethed, violating Kyo's personal space, leering right in his face. "You have tremendous faith, suddenly, in my prescience." The veins in his forehead bulged. His teeth were bared and clenched.

"Come ON, now, Akito," Hatori tried again, louder.

Akito shivered and made a high, thin, soft sound that dipped into a rumbling in his throat—laughter, again? "Be quiet, Hatori, I'm talking to my other kinsman right now. We're bonding, you see, Kyo and I. I am sure Miss Honda would like that. Truly she hates me, I am inconveniently resistant to her little plan to infiltrate this family, so I am sure that if Kyo and I have a little HUG and KISS here, it'll make her HAPPY…. "

"Like HELL," Kyo growled. "Tohru doesn't hate you, I don't think she CAN hate. She just really PITIES you. We ALL do."

Akito went deathly still at this. All malicious glee suddenly leaked from his face. He stood down from Kyo and blankly stared at the school patch on the zodiac cat's t-shirt chest. Then he began to grind his teeth again, his scowl returning. "_Liar_…"

Tohru heard them then—the dying dove cries, all around, outside, in her head, all around Akito's very body. That horrible quiet noise of dead hope. She could swear she heard it. Why did every else pretend not to hear it? Why did she alone hear it?

Oh God. Mom!

"N-no, that's not…oh…please…Could we please just…go talk in there?" Tohru pierced this swiftly escalating, vindictive argument with a trembling request.

Hatori let loose a very long sigh, backing off again, his face tight with skepticism and worry.

Kyo glowered down at the satchel in his grip, then at Tohru. "Kay."

Akito followed his kinsman's eyes. Then he snapped his fingers, leading them both into the sitting room that overlooked the vast back grounds—his most frequent haunt. "Alright. Why are you here and what is that thing?" He gestured irritably at the satchel, pacing the room like a sullen robot.  
Tohru knelt, alongside Kyo. She chose to speak plainly and clearly. "It's a gift. For you. And that's why I came."

"….Me?" Akito stopped just in front of her, and turned. His face was still eerily blank as he appraised Tohru. He looked at her hair…thick, shiny mahogany, perhaps her one great beauty, and his eyebrows knit for a split second, as though he were remembering some sensation attached to her plait.

_He might pull your hair again, _Kisa had warned—perhaps Akito was remembering his attack upon Tohru. But with chagrin or sadistic pleasure? His right hand curled into a fist, and his countenance again became languidly dark and placid as a lake surface at midnight. "Go ahead," he relented at last, in a carefully lofty croon. "What is this…gift?"

Tohru knew not to allow this to reassure her fully. Akito was known to punctuate perfect tranquility with fits of blind rage.** "**M-My friend Hana….she has an old elementary school friend who works at an animal shelter. One of the cats had kittens…they..they died…all except for this one…but it's very sick and it might not live either. If we don't find a place for it to…to stay, it'll be put to sleep right away. Hana told me that she somehow knew I had the perfect person to give it to, someone who really understood how …how lonely and scary and miserable it can be to be really sick but…but still keep on trying to live…"

At this point she slowly and gently took the satchel bag from the stiff-backed Kyo. She pulled out a very small white Siamese kitten with black markings on wide blue eyes. One eye was either crossed or lazy. It was very quiet, and very thin. She held it out for Akito to inspect. His face had grown even more deadpan, and very, very pale. He bit his lip until a chapped portion of it seeped a small trickle of blood. Still, he was utterly expressionless. He made no motion to touch it, or her, in any way. Neither did he retreat from them in any fashion.

Tohru swallowed back a mounting sense of panic and embarrassment, and continued.

"When Hana told me to find someone who was very ill but very strong despite their illness, I thought of you, Akito, after we…talked…a few months ago…about some things. I…I know a lot has happened since then…I know you don't trust me very well yet, and I know that, to you, I don't exactly…belong here…but I asked you to tell me how you felt, and you...well you said you didn't know, but it was an honest answer, you trusted me enough then, so I thought maybe it would be okay with you if I brought you this present…mom used to say that some people she knew who were psychologists, um, they reported that chronically sick people in hospitals benefit from petting and taking care of cats and dogs—having pets. So I thought if you helped this kitten it…it might help you. What…what do you um…think?"

A long and pregnant silence followed.

Then Akito shifted weight in his oversized coral robe and white kimono. As he moved, the pungently sweet scent of anesthetics, mint tea, and alcohol swabs, heavy on his clothing, attacked her nostrils. It suddenly seemed ironic to Tohru that he habitually complained of the odor of Kyo in his true form. Her indignation kept her from fainting when Akito finally spoke.

"I am nineteen years old, Miss Honda." The eyes of the head of Sohma House pulsated strangely, the muscles of the darkened skin just beneath his whites tensing and relaxing. It was as though he were internally debating whether to indulge himself in a sudden and violent rage. The convulsive gesture reached his pupils, which contracted and dilated sporadically. He was smiling but it was more like a grimace of pain. "I am not a patient in a children's terminal cancer ward."

Kyo groaned softly.

Beneath her skirt, Tohru's thighs broke out in clammy goosebumps, but her pity stifled her fear. She almost got the impression—though her idealistic view of others often played this trick on her—that Akito was making an agonizing effort to grasp at some very alien self-restraint as thanks for her compassion only three weeks previously. She was, however, aware that this boy's reservoir of temperance and maturity was severely limited. She proceeded cautiously. "That isn't what I meant….I promise, Akito, I'm not trying to condescend to you."

"OF COURSE NOT!" he scoffed, one eye twitching so badly that it closed, the other scathingly squinted at her. "How COULD you when you are in every way my INFERIOR?"

This stung, but Tohru had expected it. She recovered swiftly, wringing her wet jumper sleeves and averting her eyes. "I know I am."

Kyo had retreated to the door in case Hatori should suddenly be needed. He now made a strangled but furious noise behind them, kicking the bottom of the doorframe.

Akito calmed abruptly, staring down at the girl whom he had always seen as an outsider with cool scorn. Then he dribbled a frantic, high-pitched giggle. Then he reeled forward, bending over her ear. "I don't want a dying cat," he concluded softly. "Unless I get to kick it to death. Sorry, did that upset you? Too bad." Then, rather uncharacteristically lightly, he pushed her, and made to turn away.

"Could I please ask why?" Tohru's whisper was almost inaudible as she cradled the kitten. "Why you won't try out something new, I mean."

The Sohma God tossed his thin black hair—so sleek, beautiful and fragile, silken and sickly—from his hard, unforgiving jade-blue eyes. "Who has time?" The cavalier nature of his voice felt a bit forced.

Tohru noticed.

Akito noticed that Tohru noticed. Cornered, and perhaps because he had neither sharp objects nor hard and breakable objects with which to bludgeon her, he switched tactics to the indifferently reposed maneuver.

He cocked his chin upward and mutinously glowered at the ceiling. "You have appalling nerve turning the master of Sohma House into a charity case." The bridge of his nose curled into many delicate folds, like a sheet of crisp soft linen. "Stupid girl. Get out."

"When you said 'who has time,' you meant you feel discouraged by the shortness of your time left to live?"

"Did I ask you to interpret every word out of my mouth?" He sneered. "Don't tell me, more sugary things you learned from mommy?"

"So that's a yes," Kyo growled in the doorway, with astounding courage.

Akito whirled on him, fingers wriggling as he made a strangling gesture in the zodiac cat's direction. "YOU have someplace else to BE, you stinking little monster! GO—you HAVE my leave! Or WAIT, shall I PROVE how much I dislike your company?" He started towards Kyo, looking around the sitting room frenziedly for that coveted sharp or breakable weapon. Yet however formidable his tone, it was also transparently childish—full of vulnerability and frustrated, powerless tantrum. What unspeakable horrors he had unleashed on his fellow humans simply to be able to convey his loneliness and resentment—in a manner that would force them to empathize! Was their suffering the only way he sought companionship? Was he so jealous of the happiness of anyone else? He could have simply asked, confided…but to the knowledge of his entire family—his victims in one way or another—he had never tried. Were she home at Shigure's house this moment, Tohru might have been moved to tears by the revelation: Akito Sohma was a cruel, pathetic child.

But she still did not regret having met him.

She would make him understand this, one way or the other. She WOULD.

"Oh, Akito," she mumbled, unable to keep a tremor from her tone. "You think you have control over nothing, that's why you try to control everything. You're hopeless."

Akito stumbled to a halt. Both boys turned back to observe her, both stricken. Kyo, for his part, also appeared as though he were going to shove Akito's pretty, frail skull up the hole between the young tyrant's bony buttocks, damned be the consequences. By some miracle, he restrained himself.

Akito, however, was deeply mortified. "That…that is a HORRIBLE thing to say to someone!" he stuttered, as though he had been slapped across the face. He was gawking at her openly. Evidently he had perceived, until this moment, that unkindness had been his patented invention and that Tohru's statement was a trespass upon his rights. "Horrible!"

"But it's true." Tohru's shoulders shuddered.

"You made her cry," Kyo breathed. Every syllable was laced with contempt. "YOU made her cry."

"YOU SHUT UP, cat! Miss Honda, how DARE you! I allowed that your memory be spared! I allowed that you live without repercussion with Shigure and Yuki and this THING!"—here he gestured at Kyo, who trembled with fury. "How DARE you! I am NOT hopeless!" And then he actually stamped his bare, milky white foot upon the padded cream floor. "I am NOT! VILE troublesome bitch, I am NOT!"

"I am very thankful to your for your generosity, Akito."

"Don't you pull that shit with me, little girl! Don't feign gratitude, I'm NOT STUPID!"

"I didn't say you were." She stared at him. Her face was dry but her eyes were bloodshot. "I am faking nothing. I really am thankful to you. That's why I came here today, I didn't want to avoid you. I wanted to comfort you."

For some reason, just as it had before, her sincere tears on his behalf disturbed and agitated Akito. "Stop crying!" he panted. "Don't get upset! I hate that, STOP it! Do something!" He turned on Kyo, bristling. "Make her stop, DO something to her! Do whatever it is she needs, STOP her!" His face was violently flushed and his skin glistened with sweat.

Kyo was smiling. It was not a kind smile. "With all of my respect, Master Akito," and he bowed, "I think you just told me to leave you and Tohru alone. I don't wish to disobey you, Master."

Akito, it seemed, was immobile with his own rage. He sputtered and twitched for several seconds before finally vomiting, "YOU LITTLE PRICK! Don't make ME deal with her! Don't I do ENOUGH for you people?"

"I am leaving now, Master." Kyo bowed still lower. There was nothing his head of house could do—the cat had violated no etiquette, breeched no promise. There was nothing to punish and Akito's despotism would cross some even more unholy line if he now struck out at Kyo. Both boys knew it. Therefore, slowly, the zodiac cat backed away from his livid leader. "Sorry, you know what this rain does to me. Tohru, it'll be okay—I'll be right outside." With that stony declaration, Kyo withdrew from the sitting room and slid shut the door.

For an instant, Tohru panicked—until she realized that she did not have the luxury of panic, for Akito's crazed eyes were again upon her. He looked exhausted and…terrified. He slid bodily against the wall and to the floor.

Tohru stifled a scream, stood, deposited the kitten on the floor, and rushed to him. She bent over his sweat-soaked, recumbent form. "I'm so sorry! Oh, I'm so sorry! I've upset you! What is it? Should I call for Hatori? Are you alright? Akito!" She burst into fresh and torrential tears, clutching at his kimono.

"Get away from me," he hissed, swatting at her face, smacking away her hands, and rolling over on his other side, away from her. As though too defeated even to curl into a fetal position, he lay there, limp, lifeless, aside his vitriolic voice. "Where is that cat? Someday I will punish that filthy Kyo…I hate cats, WHERE IS THAT CAT YOU BROUGHT? Will it make you stop your stupid useless crying if I hold it? I hate your crying. I don't know why but I hate your crying and it's HORRIBLE of you to upset me further! Give me that CAT, I am NOT hopeless! How DARE you, I am NOT!"

Tohru stifled a wobbly smile and stumbled to retrieve the kitten. Because Akito made no movement to hold it, she placed it on his side. The kitten blinked and batted at his belt, and kneaded his ribcage. Akito didn't move. The kitten mewed in puzzlement and stumbled down towards his emaciated stomach, nibbling and tugging on the silken fabric of his kimono. Then it began to crawl around and purr, and it disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of Akito's hidden neck and face. Still he did not move, but he gave a great shuddering sigh. The kitten did not resurface from its hiding place but its purring was audible even a few feet away—it must have found respite near or against the leader of Sohma House after all. Tohru observed Akito's bared forearms and calves—his skin seemed less sweat-soaked, and he was no longer trembling.

"Are you feeling better?" she cooed, resting a hand on his shoulder. Akito jerked violently away, so Tohru retrieved her hand and was careful not to touch him again.

"Is it because you love Kyo that you gave me this thing? Did you do it to spite me, Tohru—to show me you wish to intrude upon our lives and then defy me?"

The room reeled before Tohru at this absurd question. "Of course not, Akito!" she gasped.

"So then the thought of me disgusts you. You want to ingratiate yourself with me." More urgently.

"No, Akito." She felt lead gathering in her belly. "No, I just wanted to make you happy like I try to make all the other Sohmas happy, because I care about this entire family…even the member that believes no one will miss him when he dies."

"Say you hate me. Say it." Weakly, but frantically.

"But that would be a lie."

"Would it? Just SAY it, dammit! Say you hate me like they all do. Be the one who's brave enough to actually SAY it, Miss Honda. I have made you all hate me, and I don't care, it's too late now, so just say it."

"It would be a lie and I can't. I'm sorry, I just can't."

Silence, except for the enamored purring of the kitten. Then, "Where are you going today, Miss Honda?" in his most detached and satin-lined tones.

"After I take my leave? The um…grocery, actually."

"Then I will go to the grocery with you." Akito pushed himself upright and handed the kitten, who had been buried in his neck, back to Tohru. "Then we will see if you still want to give Akito Sohma any charity."

There was misery and hateful pride in Akito's voice. Tohru planned to tackle both of these head-on. She had to try.

Akito returned from his bedroom sporting navy sweatpants and thin-weight cotton navy hooded sweatshirt jacket, a green line slicing through the side of both sleeves. He caught Tohru staring openly at him, and, with a smug expression, tugged the zipper higher and closer to his swan neck. "94 pounds," he said.

"I'm…sorry?"

"I weigh 94 pounds." He actually grinned. His right eyelid twitched only slightly at her thick-wittedness. This was progress.

Tohru's voice nevertheless shook uncontrollably. "That…that isn't funny, Akito." Her lips shivered and tried to smile.

"I didn't say that it was, Miss Honda. But that has been my weight ever since I was …Oh…I'd say…around thirteen."

"You seem to dwell a whole lot on your sickness…"

"What else might I have to dwell on?"

"Oh, Akito. So very much."

"Show me, then." It was more of a chastisement than a true invitation.

Nevertheless, Tohru smiled meekly and replied, "I will."

"You're going WHERE?" Hatori popped his head into the sitting room, jaw ajar.

Kyo's hate-dripping tones were distinct in a stream of mumbling and cursing somewhere down the hall. More than one wall was being punched, by the dull thunking sound distantly reverberating in other quarters.

"Oh er yes…" Hatori resumed his countenance of longsuffering tolerance. "Kyo said to tell you two he's staying behind, but that Tohru should er 'text' him on her cellular phone at five minute intervals repeatedly until you are home, and that if she does not, he will call HER every five minutes in the store until she is so irritated that she complies."

Akito crowed a defiant little "Hah!" and tossed his hair, striding out of the room. "How childish. Come, Miss Honda."

Tohru set her cell phone to silent.

"I like the wheat kind."

"What?"

"What a stupid mistake, Miss Honda. The WHEAT crackers, not the white! Dammit, girl, don't DROP the sushi! Give me the stupid cart to lean on, I feel like utter and absolute shit and I don't want to ride one of those retarded little golf carts."

People were beginning to stare at the 20-ish-year-old boy pushing around and snapping at the teenage girl at every turn of the supermarket. They certainly hastened out of the way when the brooding young man jerked the shopping cart from the flustered young lady's grasp and began stalking down the boxed nonperishables aisle with it. " I have to do every damned thing to get it done right, don't I? Every damned thing for this stupid family, and no one thanks me!" Akito paused to bend over Tohru's cart and cover his mouth with a handkerchief, while succumbing to a coughing spell. He was sweating profusely again and his cheeks were pink.

"Erm, I'm sorry…oh dear, take it easy…and uh…thank you?"

" Oh please! You should be sorry! Now go get the crackers while I get the rice. Dammit, go!"

"I'm sorry! I'll hurry!"

Tohru escaped the vengeance of her unlikely shopping buddy, dashing down the snack aisle and willing herself not to give in to the hot, prickly feeling in her eyes. She would not let Akito believe that anger and spite could defeat hope and kindness, not even in as simple a task as the purchasing of snacks and produce.

When she returned to the cart, however, Akito was already sifting through the items they had already picked off the shelves and freezers, scoffing, snorting, and jeering at nearly everything, in his deceptively sweet purr:

"The expiration date is too soon…you had to pick the over ripe apples did you?…tampons, do you expect me to go through the checkout with those?…I suppose precious Kyo and dear Yuki get you tampons and douches and …and nail polish and mascara and all manner of disgusting feminine products all the time and endure the mortification of it in public because they love you so. Your puppets, eh?"

At about five minutes into this soft diatribe, during which Tohru's reticence only seemed to encourage him, his crooning sharpened to an acid hiss. He wrung the tampon box until it broke, tossing it into the aisle like a child pitching a hated toy out of its cradle. It might have all been very amusing if Tohru weren't already hideously embarrassed.

Oh Mom, and still he continued: "I suppose you take all that for granted but I would never have been good enough for it, not sickly fragile Akito, the one who still sees through your act. Well Miss Honda I won't start indulging you now that you think you can use me, too. I am head of my household, not a servant." He sniffed, jutted his frail chin, and shoved the cart ahead.

Tohru gasped as this bizarre and unfounded verbal arsenal drew to its close—all she could gather from it was Akito's vicious jealousy of the compassion and company that his family members had received from empathetic outsiders like herself. She did not come out of this distressing revelation until Akito barked over his shoulder at her to "get a move on."

She made three paces towards his stalking form when her purse slipped from her unsteady hands…

And spilled all over the aisle—lipstick, comb, cell phone, loose change, snacks, wallet—everything conceivably stashed in a woman's purse. "Oh…oh I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I'll hurry, you go on," she whimpered through tumbles of chestnut hair as she squatted to retrieve the contents from the linoleum.

The rusty squeal of the shopping cart wheels ceased several feet in front of her. The sole of one shoe, then another, smacked the floor. "No," Akito's voice imperiously loomed overhead, "I'll wait."

This did not bode, somehow, as a charitable or patient gesture. And in Akito's cast shadow, Tohru found it more difficult to locate each item that had been spilled.

She scooped her possessions hastily into the center compartment of her purse—there would be time to organize them later. Her knees burned from the pressure of her skin against the unforgiving, dirty linoleum. Having pulled her wallet against one knee to ensure its safety, she retrieved it last. She opened it to ensure that the cherished photograph of her late mother, Kyoko Honda, still peeked from its centerfold with her radiant smile. Yuki Sohma had saved this photograph from a dilapidated and buried camping tent on the first night that he and Tohru met. Ordinarily, the cherished item, a shrine and surrogate of Kyoko, would be reposing on Tohru's bedstand in a plain silver frame. But the challenges brought by today's confrontation with Akito had persuaded Tohru to bring her mom's image and supportive presence along.

Tohru made the supreme error of hesitating for a single instant to smile warmly down at her mother's photograph.

Then Akito, hovering over her, having left the cart rudely parked in the middle of the aisle, lost his patience. He reached down and snatched away Tohru's wallet. The pure, unbridled contempt on his face as he stared at the auburn hair, joyful expression, pink sweater, and "victory" gesture of Kyoko Honda was…indescribable. It was as if this woman were his mortal enemy. "This is her, then, your mother. The person everyone says you always talk about. Your…mom, who died." His grasp on the wallet tightened. Aside over-enunciating, he spoke in the same gray croon as always.

So why was Tohru so instantly afraid? And why was she still on her knees in the grocery store aisle, where puzzled customers passed them both? Why was she submitting herself to this foolishness?

Suddenly she was filled with a most alien emotion: anger. Anger that was quickly boiling to fury. _You can afford to get mad sometimes_, _show people your limits,_ Kyo had once lovingly scolded her. Her limits. Yes. She was about to follow his advice—which, like Shigure's words that very morning, was beginning to acquire sharp clarity.

She stammered at first, then relocated the indignation flickering like a newborn flame in her chest. "Y-yes, that's my mom. I...I love her more than anyone else in the world."

"Why?" It was almost accusatory. "She has hair the color of rotting carrots and I bet she always SMOTHERED you with expectations and demands."

"No…no she didn't." Sharp pain—sharp, unexpected pain—flooded through Tohru and magnified and then displaced her anger. "Mom was always supportive, and kind to me, and she—"

"Then I HATE your mother and I'm GLAD she's dead!" Akito looked oddly triumphant.

"Wh-what?"

"How did she die?" He sneered.

"A..a car accident…"

"Good! GOOD for reckless drivers! I'm glad you're not happy! You DESERVE to lose someone that wonderful anyway, since you're such a GOOD-FOR-NOTHING!" This last declaration was roared as at the height of one of Akito's rages. The next two grocery aisles suddenly were silenced by this disturbance. Many, many heads turned.

And Tohru was crying, uncontrollably, as though Akito had found her greatest pain and punched it through and through in the form of a button with his fist. She stood up and stumbled away from him, shielding her face and sobbing. She begged herself to stop, but simply could not.

Akito went deathly still, like a hare under sight of a fox—inexplicably terrified of the very emotional damage that he had deliberately inflicted. His teal eyes were wide and glassy. "Oh, shit," he breathed, and nothing more.

The store manager, evidently having been alerted to this troublesome pair of customers, was on his way down the aisle to ask Akito to leave the store. One look from the head of Sohma House sent the man hastening in the opposite direction.

"You don't mean that," Tohru finally hiccupped, wiping her eyes dry and placing her hands on the shopping cart.

With this remark, Akito's wave of remorse dissipated like the smoke from one of Hatori's cigarette's. "Who cares whether I meant it or not if it FELT GOOD?" he leered.

She turned on him, stunned.

He looked positively gleeful. "Say it now. You hate me."

"I…" She almost said it.

Almost.

Then, coldly, she replaced it with, "_No_. I'm going to get in a check out lane. Join me if you want." And she walked away from him. The cart squealed plaintively as she purchased the sundry products that Akito seemed to have almost arbitrarily selected, alongside her pragmatic selections. Somehow she found herself carrying her bag of groceries out of the market.

"TOHRU! TOHRU HONDA!" Akito cornered her outside the store, just after she placed the groceries inside his car—she had expected the altercation to continue, since he had driven her there and she had no other way of getting home, and it was beginning to rain torrentially. This wasn't their first face-off in a deluge—that had been the night his deceptions had nearly lost her Kyo. But this was nearly as horrifying.

Akito's face was contorted almost beyond recognition as he placed an arm on each side of Tohru, pinning her to the drenched side of his black sedan. There was something far uglier in the way his raven hair was plastered to his pale skull, to his abruptly twisted, snarling flesh, than to Kyo's entire vile, stinking, scarred appearance as an embittered cat spirit.

Akito did nothing, now, to mask his sarcasm and sorrow. His voice was an inhuman, agonized hiss." '_Let's stay together always_,' isn't that your platitude? Isn't that what you always thrust on Kyo and Yuki? Didn't you say you wanted that with everyone in the Sohma family? A LIE! You see? You really hate me after all. You DO!"

"N-no! I don't! But why do you CARE so much if YOU hate ME, Akito?"

"….Because everyone is someone's favorite—everyone but me." He squeezed shut his eyes, as though in sudden great pain. Though he still had her cornered against the car, he refocused his stare on the treetops past the parking lot. His face had become a thing of frail beauty once again, rainwater drizzling off his small, pointed chin. "Because I have no time left to make amends and it is worse to know that someone wants to reach me now, when it is too late."

She found herself actually shouting at him. It was as if another voice were doing it, another person, far away—not her own lips, or her own voice. It seemed so dim and distant. "It's NEVER too late! You said yourself that you're not hopeless! Akito, it's never EVER too late!"

Again he began to scream: "YES IT IS, Tohru! That you refuse to accept this FACT is PROOF that I have always been CORRECT that you are a meddler and DON'T BELONG IN MY FAMILY! You cause ME more pain than good every time you pick at this scab! Leave us all ALONE! I'm DYING for them—you can't surpass my sacrifice! NO ONE CAN!"

"All you think about is yourself!"

"ALL I _HAVE_ IS MYSELF!"

Silence. Each one stared at the other, angry, helpless, defeated. Tohru could barely see her opponent and would-be new friend through her own soaked curtain of hair.

Then she spoke—hoarsely, brokenly. "Akito, you're a frightened fool. I would like to know you as I know your entire family. I would like to cherish you as a dear, dear friend. I would like to love you as one. But I can't do any more to prove that to you. I'm done. You win. Your loneliness is uninterrupted. Your misery—it's still intact. Enjoy it, I…I guess." She swallowed a sob and, while the shock of this declaration was still fresh, she slid out from under his arms and got into the front passenger seat of his car.

She waited. And waited. And waited. Still Akito did not join her. Perhaps he had taken a walk around the parking lot to calm down before driving. Or perhaps he was trying to find a sharp object with which to gouge out her eyes once he returned. She thought of locking the doors but didn't. Somehow, she could not bring herself to care.

Her phone heralded a bleeping text message—in the dumping of her purse, apparently, it must have reset from silent to ringing. The message light flashed a panicked red. There were seven messages from Kyo that she had neglected to answer. She began to cry again—two Sohmas in one day that she felt she had let down. What could she have done more for either of them? Where had she failed?

There was a rapping on the driver's side window, and Tohru leapt and gave a soft shriek. But it was not Akito standing outside gazing at her in deep, genuine concern—it was Kyo. With a slight nod from Tohru, the Zodiac cat opened the door and slipped inside. Frustration tightened his features. "I want to hug you," he mumbled, "but…." His words trailed. "You know. The curse." His eyes were wearily hooded from the effects of the rain on his Zodiac form.

She nodded, managing a shivering laugh. He would never know how much his simply being there helped.

A pause. Then Kyo pressed, "So where's Akito? What did he do to you? Just let me know so, you know, I can know what to scream at him when I rip him a new one." But he was smiling at her, and, with some Kleenex in the glove compartment, dabbing at her face. He was red-faced again, from ear to ear and cheek to cheek, and she loved him for it.

Then he added, "Tohru, some people aren't worth the effort. They…thrive on…bringin' you down, too. Just… tell me where he is, and I'll stay with you guys while he drives us back to Main House."

She stared at the car floor. "I don't know. We had…words…and I got into the car."

Kyo gawked. "YOU had words with someone?" Then he grinned almost fiendishly. "_That's_ my girl!" Then he reddened for the exponentially frequent time that day. "I uh mean…I'll go look for him. Use your damned cell phone to text me if he gets in the car first, though, godssakes. Lookit all the messages I left you! Scared me to death—Yuki, too, if that's what really matters, coz he's headed to Main House to help out if somethin's wrong! _Hmph_!" Flinging on his cloak of grumpiness, he stood and loped around in search of his head of house.

Tohru smiled softly to herself—suddenly her solitude seemed miles away again. She opened her car door, stepped out…

And found Akito collapsed on his side, on the pavement right by where she had left him, completely unconscious.

Tohru screamed. "KYO!"

Several hours passed at Sohma Main House after Tohru and Kyo had telephoned Hatori and Shigure to take Akito home to his bed. He had been stripped, dried, and swathed in his somehow foreboding coral kimono and robe, and given at least nine different types of pills—each deceptively glossy and colorful like hard candy. Heavily sedated, he had been supplied with blankets and pillows and ordered to sleep. Then Hatori and Shigure had slipped inside Akito's bedroom, forbidden any intruders, and shut the door. That was four hours and fifteen minutes of grave-like silence ago.

Tohru was given a change of dry clothes, protracted—delightedly, of course, with mildly lecherous chants of "high school girrrls, all for meee" on the other end of the phone—by Shigure from the closets and underwear drawers of her own bedroom back home. Thus redressed, she sat lifelessly in the main sitting room overlooking the back grounds. Dapples of harsh winter sunlight splashed through the bleak gray of the sky, bathing the wet ground in a shimmering, purifying light. Akito's eerily cooing white birds congregated in the semi-frozen grass, rummaging for worms.

While they waited for a verdict on Akito's state in their dry clothes and socks, Kyo lay on his stomach beside Tohru, playing with Akito's kitten. It had grown livelier since acquiring new residence, even hissing and batting at the redhead as he gently provoked its predatory side. Yuki had already gone back out to get some more prescriptions per Hatori's request, and, to his mammoth chagrin, to telephone his irritably flamboyant brother Ayame and ask him to relate the news of Akito's illness to the other Sohmas. Momiji Sohma, the Zodiac rabbit, had gone to assist him, and the others were at school and work. The house was, therefore, indeed quiet.

Ten more minutes passes before Shigure slipped out of Akito's bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen, with an unusual degree of sobriety and purpose. He did not return.

Tohru and Kyo exchanged quizzical looks. Kyo shrugged and resumed play with the kitten.

Another five minutes passed before Hatori, too exited. The door to Akito's room was open and even from her position down the hallway, Tohru could smell the alcohol swabs and that sour-sweet odor of anesthetics. Akito was awake and staring blankly at Hatori's back. The Zodiac God looked dull and crestfallen, but there was no change to the careful, stony patience on his doctor's face. "You should still be asleep," he rumbled over his shoulder at his primary patient. "If you want to talk to her, it had better stay brief."

Tohru's stomach dropped.

Kyo grumbled, standing. "Talk to her, eh?" He assumed an aggressive stance in Akito's direction, something between the pose of a crane and a sumo wrestler. "Done plenty of that today as is, Master Akito, if ya don't mind my sayin' so. Or DO ya?" He blew amber hair out of blazing ruby eyes, making fists at the person he could never really defy rather pointlessly.

Tohru thought it was really quite sweet.

Akito, however, gazed hazily back, apparently still a bit drugged. His nose wrinkled. "Huh?"

Hatori stepped ferociously between Kyo and sight of the head of Sohma House. He lifted a single index finger, piercing the Zodiac cat with his smoky eyes. "Don't, Kyo!" he spat.

Kyo scowled. "Fine." He sat back down, handing the cat to Tohru. "Good luck. I'm right here, right outside."

Mom, help!

Tohru forced herself to her feet, knees buckling slightly, the skin and muscles still irritated from kneeling so long on the floor of the grocery store. She perched the kitten on her shoulder and heaved the sack of groceries into the room with her. She did not look Akito in the eye as she sat down next to the head of his bed. There was a very breakable vase right on the other side of the bed, well within his grasp.

She had never been so afraid.

"Remember," Hatori urged as he pulled the door closed, "keep it short. Tohru? Hold him to it."

Tohru nodded numbly. After she heard the latch turning, and realized she had no escape, she simply waited.

"I like going barefoot," the Zodiac God idly crooned. Then, when the door was fully closed, the drowsy act was shed, and Akito, very much awake and alert, looked right at her.

He swallowed.

So did she.

He looked extremely frightened and discouraged.

She remembered to breathe.

He spoke: "I should give him some money to have it fixed."

…_What?_

_Mom! Mom, help!_

_Just be yourself, you'll be fine. _

_…Okay, Mom. _

"Er, I'm sorry Akito," and here Tohru bowed, "but I don't understand what you're referr…"

Akito began to gesticulate so frantically that Tohru's words trailed. He gestured at his left eye, then at the closed door, through which Hatori had just walked. "I know it's my fault," he breathed, in a paper-thin voice. "I always have. I knew it was my mistake the moment he started to bleed on my rug. But I still blamed her and sent her away. The vase—the shards were on my floor for weeks, I just stared at them and I KNEW I had done it to him, not her, but I sent HER away."

Hatori's injury. The girl whom Akito had banished—just as he had tried, unsuccessfully, to banish Tohru.

"And I call him cold as snow—his fingers, when he examines me, they're always so cold. But I mean more than that and he knows it. I try to compliment him for the creature I've turned him into."

_Oh mom, what do I say?_

Akito kept on spouting things Tohru never thought she would hear him say, and it was almost absurd, how these things suddenly now came oozing from him, and his voice slowly thickened and grew louder, though it was hoarse with illness and exhaustion. "And I know someone who calls me 'A-kun.' And I have favorite songs and toothbrush colors, and dirty laundry. I actually AM a human being." Then he lowered his gaze, and added in the deadest tone yet, "Miss Honda, I am terribly sorry. For today. For all of today. All of it."

….Mom? Did he just...? "You… I…" Tohru tried not to fall over and spill all Akito's groceries out over his bed. She somehow imagined this would not yield positive results. "I …accept your apology." She bowed again, and felt extremely stupid for it. Then, by some miracle, her eyes fell on the rice box in the brown paper bag and she began to smile. "Oh my goodness. You're a rice ball too, Akito. Like me."  
"…What?"

"Except your plum is a little more tart on the outer layer than mine. And bigger, as Kyo says mine's really tiny."

"My _plum_?"

"But it's still very sweet in the center. I'm learning that right this minute, Akito. The center is still very unspoiled and sweet."

"Miss HONDA, for God's sake, what sort of drivel is this?" Akito was peevish again, and to Tohru, this was admittedly almost a relief. He was sitting ramrod upright, his black hair so disheveled that at the moment he looked like an indignant rooster. It was the first time that he had ever seemed …endearing, accessible. "Well?"

She blinked. "…OH! I'm sorry. I've never told you the story of the fruits basket game."

"The…no, you haven't. I have heard of it, though. A child's game, with chairs lined up, and you sit until you are called." He scooted lower on his pillows and flung an arm behind his head. His eyes unfocused, sending contempt and darkness at the wall over her head. "And one child is never called. And he…or…she…loses."

Tohru's eyes softened—she understood. At last, SOMETHING about Akito that SHE UNDERSTOOD. "Yes. Well, all through my childhood, that was me—there was no fruit left with which to identify when we all played the game….so someone decided that I was to be the rice ball, and there is never a rice ball in a fruits basket." She smiled, clasped her hands in front of her, and waited for him to understand her in return.

Akito's face acquired a very new emotion now—_empathy_. Fierce, _fierce_ empathy, and _compassion,_ while he lay there suffering—and so, for a moment, that suffering was forgotten. He scratched his hair contemplatively with the hand that was draped over his head. "So you sat there while they all got called, all the 'fruits,' and watched them playing and laughing, and you…you SAT there in pain, and you were lonely, so that THEY could be happy, have their frivolity and waste and their stupid selfish joy. All through the whole damned game."

"Yes."

"Don't you _hate_ them? Don't you wish they were rice balls too? Then they'd understand you. Then you'd be sitting with someone."

"No, Akito. Then they would just be miserable too, and I would be no less miserable myself."

"Well…well Miss Honda, I say who needs a fruits basket. Why don't we make a rice basket and forget those people and their cruel exclusion?"

There was something profoundly sweet and childlike to this resolution, and it made Tohru's eyes sting. "Because some of them didn't mean to be cruel at all, Akito, and because every fruit has a positive quality, too. If we just forget them, and rule them out, or worse, stomp on them and destroy them, or even force them to be exactly like us"—for some reason, here, she thought of Yuki, with his hair and manners so much like those of a kinder, gentler Akito, Yuki whom Akito had abused the most in desperation to have an all-consumed comrade in misery—"well if we do any of those things, Akito, we'll never get to know other people, and we'll never get to experience their love."

"But they REJECTED us! They USED us!" Were Akito's eyes moist with this angry sorrow that he now displayed, or was Tohru imagining it? "They never gave me—us—a chance! They never asked….they…" He paused to cough into his handkerchief. Tohru stood and braced him until he was finished. For a second, Akito leaned against her arm for support, and she was afraid to move. Then it passed, and he reposed again. He took measured breaths, body stiffening against an unseen internal anguish. His eyelids fluttered shut, and he looked like a very young child.

It was not fair. None of this was fair. Not for Akito or for Shigure or for Hatori or for her beloved Kyo and Yuki, or any of the other Sohmas. None of them deserved this. Tohru was electrified with so many different strong feelings now. Fear was no longer one of them.

"I know, Akito," she found her voice again, and it was quiet but confident. "I acknowledge your suffering, and I wish I could do something to help you, or to take some of it upon myself. All that I can propose is that you and I see the plums on each other's backs and remind each other that we _do_ belong somewhere—that is, if you will allow me the honor."

Akito was breathing strangely, eyes firmly shut. They were gasping, rhythmic breaths, and his face wrinkled strangely once or twice. Then it regained its placidity. "I feel so weird," he mumbled.

"Scared?"

"…Ashamed."

"All people feel shame one time or another."

"But I have more to be ashamed of than most people, Miss Honda. I envy you, because you are nearly blameless. You have a beautiful heart and it brings you friends and safety, and so I covet it, Miss Honda. It makes me cruel to you, because I covet it." His fingers clenched and unclenched.

"Don't, please. Please. Your plum has a sweet core, remember? You have your own beauty, if I may be so bold as to say. And you are not without friends." Tohru picked up the Siamese kitten from its bed, a bed of woven-together old blankets. Apparently, Hatori's constant companion, Momiji, had made the thing while she and Akito were at the grocery. Now Tohru placed the kitten back in Akito's arms.

He opened his eyes.

They were red-rimmed and bloodshot. But dry—so there was no proof that he had cried. But still…

The ailing Zodiac God looked down at the wriggling, warm bundle of ailing feline. He offered it the same look that he had offered Tohru when she mentioned her place as rice ball while a child at bittersweet children's games. Empathy was still birthing inside him, but it was progressing steadily. He began to pet the kitten, to stroke it along its spine, as he looked out his circular sliding window. "Open it, you would love the birds," he said, smiling—yes, smiling—at Tohru. "They are very pretty, and friendly too."

She wobbled to her feet and obeyed. A white creature—was it a dove? Was that the sound she always heard?—fluttered in through the bay window and landed on her wrist. It crooned, ruffled, and flew back outside. Tohru giggled. "My goodness!"

Akito chuckled. "Told you….I thought perhaps I'd have some sort of bird preserve erected in my memory once I'm….gone. Or. I don't know. I haven't thought about it in detail. But they'd be white, because I like those the best. They like to keep me company."

How calmly he discussed his own mortality.

And Tohru burst into tears—again. Then she chastised herself. "I'm so sorry! I..I'll leave if it upsets you!" She hid her face in her hands.

Akito's eyes widened. "I…no, stay…stop..I mean…NOW what did I do?" A slightly demanding edge gave bite to his concern. For he could not have himself perceived as worried for another person.

"Nothing," she mumbled, "it's just so sad. You're so young, and it's…it's not fair, it's not. My mom….you…why do people die before they should? It just seems too sad to bear sometimes."

"…Oh. Right….you really care, don't you? I can't imagine why. But you do. I wasted most of my life being a complete….I could have done other things with my…understanding of….pain… but I wasted it. But you give a damn about me anyway."

She sniffled. "Yes. I really do."

"….I see." Something in his expression subtly changed and remained different.

"Akito, who made it so that you had to die so young?" Tohru hiccupped.

"…My mother. Ren Sohma." His voice was so hollow.

"Your mother!"

He over-enunciated crisply. "…Yesss. My moth-er. She was not a saint who bestowed benevolent catechisms on mortals then died a martyr in a car accident. She called me hopeless, like you did today—but she meant it in a different, crueler way than you did. She was not your mother. I hated her. I still do. I STILL do."

What could she say? There was nothing. Nothing to say to something like this. "Well actually mom wasn't a saint, she was in a gang once. She was called Red Butterfly."

He chuckled very softly at this. "Oh, okay, a seedy past which she overcame for her daughter's well-being. Gee, Miss Honda, that makes me feel less envious of your wholesome relationship with your mother." More than a touch of sarcasm. But he was trying to be cheerful. Failing but trying. Hard.

"…Oh Akito, I….Is there anything I…how do you feel? I mean…"

Akito's crumpling face again smoothed. "I don't know," he murmured. Then he looked away.

Tohru did not press the subject; she recognized this response as Akito's default choice of words when he was completely robbed of emotional and mental reserves. "Okay. I hope we can talk about this again sometime."

His lips barely moved, but she heard, "Me too. Yes."

She laid her hand on the back of his. Clammy but warm, still alive. She squeezed. This time, he let her.

A rustling behind them turned both their heads. None other than Yuki slipped into the room, clad in black pants and white blouse—an ascetic angel. "Kyo told me what happened. I thought I might come to help you." His voice was higher and softer than usual. He kept his eyes firmly locked on Tohru, as though Akito were not convalescing right there in their presence.

But the head of Sohma House sat up straighter, face brightening. "Yuki. _Yuki._ Come here."

Yuki's posture wilted; he grew childlike and self-conscious—nothing like his suave, assured self at school. "I…." He backed towards the door.

"Yuki, you can help me, come HERE." Akito tensed, struggling to sit upright. "Yuki!" His fists clenched his bedsheets and he gritted his teeth. "YUKI!"

Oh dear. Tohru's eyes pleaded with those of her very first friend in Sohma House. "It's okay, Yuki. It really is. Come here, please?"

Akito fell silent, staring at Tohru sideways, calculating, alert—as if he were diligently studying something about her. With astonishing patience, he surrendered the situation to her control, his long eyelashes fluttering tiredly.

And Yuki acquiesced. He walked stiffly to Akito's bedside—but behind Tohru. His silver hair partially hid his gaze, but it was fearful and resentful, and yet somehow strangely reverent. "I….yes?"

"You can…" Suddenly Akito was—for the first time in Tohru's recollection, and, by his stunned reaction, Yuki's—extremely awkward. His cheeks turned the same gentle rose as Yuki's did whenever the rat was utterly mortified. "Um." The God of the Sohmas cleared his throat, then his request was further postponed by a violent coughing spell. Tohru braced him by the shoulders again.

Yuki, peculiarly, began to cough as well, though it was short-lived and feeble, ending the moment that Akito settled down. They were watching each other the entire time that they both coughed.

"Yuki. You should cut your hair. However you like it. But you should cut your hair now." And then Akito tried to smile in a way that signified benevolence. It was clumsy and looked a bit more like a grimace, but it lacked that malicious, coercive edge, and this was a great stride indeed. "Cut your hair. Only don't...leave. Stay. But cut your hair. Just go ahead, alright?"

_Don't leave? But. Cut your hair?_

_Cut your hair._

_Oh Mom, of course._

Tohru glanced rapidly between the two boys and realized, again, that aside the shade, their hair was identical. And always had been, always monitored, one measured against the other, controlled by the other—but would no longer be thus restrained. And she understood what Akito was really trying to say.

Perhaps the sentiment would not last forever, or even for the span of a week, or a day. But he was feeling it for the first time and it was a real feeling, not a capricious whim. She bit her lip and tried not to smile, or weep.

Yuki's eyes immediately grew glassy—he understood, too. A vein made itself visible beneath his pale skin. He swallowed, once, twice. "I see….why now?"

"Thank your rice ball," Akito croaked, nodding at Tohru, and the smile slyly broadened. "And then….and then, Yuki…forgive me." Purposefully, perhaps, he obscured this final statement with another cough.

Tohru gasped.

Now Yuki bristled. " 'Favoring' me again, one way or the other, are you, Master Akito?" His voice trembled. "I'm so…sick of this."

"No. No no. Not just you. All of you in good time. But I thought it appropriate to start with you. I frightened you the most….I don't know." And again Akito's face was blank, and again he looked away. "I don't know. I'm dying, though, Yuki."

"You know, that carte blanche excuse gets old," Yuki snarled. "Who ISN'T going to die?"

"Well." Akito flashed a sneer, green-blue resentment returning to his eyes. "I tried, then." His fists clutched the sheets again. "It's just that I'm alone, Yuki, more than you, but what do you care. No one does."

Yuki stared at his master's hand, unpredictable, cruel, having dealt so many blows to his psyche and body throughout his childhood. Akito had tricked him with kindness before. Akito had hurt him with smiles before. But Akito had never tried to ask, rather than trick or demand, anything, until today. He shook his head, gently at first then fiercely.

"Fine. Maybe someday," he hissed. Then more gently, as Akito's features softened with an alien tint of hope, "Maybe someday." There was more forgiveness in saying even this than an outsider might have understood—but equally, a healthy dose of self-preservation. Yuki was a great, good person.

Akito made no sound or motion. His kitten burrowed into his kimono. He stroked its spine. Then he cradled it tightly. And then he nodded, once.

Yuki eyed the kitten, then Tohru. "She is beautiful," he breathed. His eyes conveyed volumes to her, just as Kyo's always did. She loved it so, how she could intimately communicate with the two most special people in her lives, and many of the other Sohmas as well. Maybe Akito too—maybe someday, as Yuki put it.

Then Yuki stood, and left the room.

Tohru glanced at Akito. He had fallen asleep. A blanket of comfort and peace lay over his features. He even seemed happy.

She thought on waking him, asking him for more that he might crave or need. She could give even more, she knew….She would just touch his shoulder once, ask him a preference of tea…she could give even more…more…even more…

"Tohru," a voice whispered. She turned, and saw Hatori, the grave and silent guardian. Shigure was with him, watching her with the same intensity as when she had left his house that morning.

The dog smiled coaxingly, wagging a finger at her. His voice was affectionate but firm. "Darling Tohru, you're done for today. Pack up your sweet kindness for tomorrow, and relax. Let's go home."

Tohru smiled back at him. She tiptoed from Akito's room, and closed the door to but an inch or two—so that it remained ever open for another time and chance.

For both of these things were sure to come.

"Welcome to the planet  
Welcome to existence  
Everyone's here  
Everybody's watching you now  
Everybody waits for you now  
What happens next?

What happens next?

I dare you to move  
I dare you to move  
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor  
I dare you to move  
I dare you to move  
Like today never happened  
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout  
Welcome to resistence  
The tension is here  
Between who you are and you could be  
Between how it is and how it should be

Maybe redemption has stories to tell  
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell  
Where can you run to escape from yourself?  
Where you gonna go?  
Where you gonna go?  
Salvation is here

I dare you to move."

--Switchfoot


End file.
